What We Do With Not Drunk Whalers
by LexiLopezi
Summary: About the Whalers.
1. Wolfhounds

Daud wonders why in the Void are there furry mutated crocodiles licking the junior Whalers. A second glance confirms them to be wolfhounds. Further questioning reveals them to be Abbey wolfhounds. Abbey wolfhounds that somehow are not trying to rip out their throats.

"Before you say anything, tell Rulfio you've been assigned two weeks of patrol duty in the sewers. Watch out for the krusts. You may start explaining." He hides his amusement at the sight of them scrambling for a good excuse; he's already decided to allow them to keep the mangy things, but they don't know that.

"Well, you know Smith? He's one of those ex-Overseers we recruited-" Jenkins started.

"He knows how to retrain hounds-" Eli chimes in.

"And we thought maybe if we stole one we could have a pet-" Piece shuffled her feet, not meeting his glare.

"But then we found a patrol and they had a whole bunch-"

"And they'd be useful in case of a break in-"

"We promise they're toilet trained-"

"Sorta…"

"Except that time with the gunpowder-"

"And that other time with that shipment of elixir-"

"But other than that it's fine-"

"And they won't bother ya or nothin'-"

"So please please please can we keep'em, sir? Please?"

He makes a big show of fake deciding, a few "hmms" here and there, adding an extra long pause at the end just to mess with them a bit.

"Keep what?"

"The hou- …oh. Oooooh."

"I don't see any hounds," one of them stares blankly into space (at least, it looks like it, they're still wearing their masks), then surreptitiously gives the hound next to him a victory scratch behind the ears.

"You still have the river patrols." He pauses a moment to savor their groans of despair before transversing back to his office.

He has a reputation to maintain, after all.

* * *

They take the hounds with them when they move to Serkonos, and then there are puppies. Daud gets first pick (despite protests that he has 'no time to take care of the fleabags, wait what do you mean you'll drown the weakest ones'), and grudgingly chooses the runt of the litter.

It brings him his pistol in the mornings, and he teaches it to fetch training dummies.

He is very proud when it kills its first rabbit.

* * *

**A/N: I have taken pathopharmacology's and leviathanteacups' whaler headcanons as official canon. ****This is inspired by their writings and stuff. Which are, disappointingly, some of the few stories about the Whalers. Therefore I wrote this. If they do mind me using a couple of their characters' names because making my own would just feel fake, I'll take this down.**


	2. Music

Annoyingly cheerful accordion music floated through the windows, most of which lacked glass. The roof was also nonexistent, but more importantly, Hobson was losing his sleep _as well as_ freezing his ass off. Normally, Hobson would have enjoyed the jaunty tune, but just before dawn was a bit much, even for him.

Then someone started singing.

The accordion had been fine. Disgusting happy, but fine. But the singing was more like geese being stepped on a by a tallboy, with mangled Serkonan thrown in for kicks. He knew only one person who didn't know about the noise drills yet. Walter. Their newest recruit. Outsider knows where Rulfio found this one, all long limbs and twitchy, hair-trigger nerves. Something about Smith, the Abbey, and rejects. Walter also couldn't sing for whale meat. Even Bertram was beginning to stir, and Bertram slept like a log. And snored.

The boot Hobson threw shut him up just fine. It wasn't his boot, but Bertram would thank him later. Maybe.

The next morning, Lurk gave him a tongue-lashing on how important it was to keep it down, and if he wanted the Overseers to find them Walter might as well write "Heretic Assassins Here" in rainbow paint on the walls. He also got latrine duty for a month. When Tyros took him aside to explain (slightly more calmly), why they had noise drills, and how the Overseers had found the Previous Base, Walter told him about the Overseer music. Specifically, how to_ counter_ the Overseer music.

"Music with particular harmonics will counteract the very specific wavelengths that the Overseer music boxes produce, rendering them impotent." Walter tended to sound like a textbook when he was nervous, or excited. Or both. And thus followed a ridiculously long explanation, during which Walter somehow got hold of detailed diagrams and hastily scribbled sheet music, all boiling down to "basically, if you sing loud enough your magical woo-woo powers won't go away."

"And how do you know all this?" Tyros asked out of plain curiosity.

"It's why they tried to execute me in the first place."

The Whalers had _great_ fun with that particular discovery.

Piece found bagpipes from somewhere and spent nights holed up in a hidden corner of the Abbey playing old Morley reels. The Overseers were convinced banshees had risen out of the Void, and wasted weeks chanting fervent Stricture whenever they heard it.

Tyros tethered a trombone straight from the Boyles' next party, and started practicing it at heretical hours of the day and night outside the kennels, causing the hounds to either start a howling accompaniment, or whimper and bash their heads against the walls. Nobody had the heart to tell him he sounded like a tone deaf whale.

Soon they had a regular little band going on, which lasted all of half an hour when Lurk put a stop to it.

"_No_. I don't care you know how to play them. I know how to dance, but you don't see me dancing at _three in the __**damn morning**_, and- yes, very funny. Keep that up and you will have latrine duty 'till you **_die_**. I will do it. Daud gave me permission, and I outrank Rulfio and Rinaldo _combined_."

The music stopped.

Until they found the audiograph, that is.


End file.
